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The land of black gold is finally turning green

AGENDA | The World Future Energy Summit confirmed that a renewables revolution is set to sweep the symbolic home of global oil, writes Darius Snieckus

The Middle East, with its long hours of blazing sun and strong Shamal winds blowing in from the Gulf, has long held enormous promise as a renewable energy powerhouse. But due to its vast and cheaply tapped oil resources and entrenched hydrocarbon-based energy policies, promise – to this point – has remained just that.

However, at this year’s World Future Energy Summit (WFES) in Abu Dhabi – where Recharge was launched nine years ago – only the most cynical of industry observers would not have been persuaded that meaningful change is finally afoot.

The latest forecasts of energy demand in the region are illuminating. The UAE is expected to need a total of 483GW of power generation capacity by 2035, up from around 280GW today, to accommodate the emerging economic diversification in the emirates and a rapidly growing population base that is spurring demand growth of some 3.3% per year, according to a new report from Siemens and clean-energy group Masdar.

Gas will necessarily retain its primacy as a power source in this scenario, accounting for 60% of the installed generation base by 2035. But the renewables build-out in the Middle East is expected to swell to 100GW, with new solar capacity exploding from 1.35GW to 61GW and wind riding an updraft from 360MW to over 11GW, as clean energy’s overall share of the region’s power mix triples from its current 5.6% of total electricity production.

“The convergence of technologies is promising a paradigm shift in the way in which we produce and consume energy and there is no question that the Middle East will be at the heart of the transformation taking place,” said Masdar chief executive Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi in a briefing with international journalists on the eve of WFES.

His sentiments echoed with global resonance in the days that followed, with the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) unveiling figures showing wind and PV projects could be flowing electricity at $0.03/kWh or less inside the next two years as cost trajectories continue their precipitous, hydrocarbon-undercutting decline. And Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported that an “extraordinary” 53GW PV installation boom in China had pushed last year’s worldwide renewables investment total to $333.5bn, 3% higher than in 2016.

Even offshore wind and concentrating solar power, historically viewed as prohibitively expensive, are now projected to ease into the energy mainstream between 2020-22 on the back of auction bids priced at $0.06-0.10/kWh, igniting “accelerated deployment globally”.

By Irena’s calculations, “all renewable energy technologies compete with fossils on price by 2020”. The tipping point looms.

“Turning to renewables for new power generation is not simply an environmentally conscious decision, it is now – overwhelmingly – a smart economic one,” said Irena director-general Adnan Amin. “The energy transition is now in third gear – and will soon be in fourth.”

At last, in the land of black gold – and indeed the world over – all signs point to the dawning of a new era of green energy.

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The land of black gold is finally turning green

The land of black gold is finally turning green

AGENDA | The World Future Energy Summit confirmed that a renewables revolution is set to sweep the symbolic home of global oil, writes Darius Snieckus

The Middle East, with its long hours of blazing sun and strong Shamal winds blowing in from the Gulf, has long held enormous promise as a renewable energy powerhouse. But due to its vast and cheaply tapped oil resources and entrenched hydrocarbon-based energy policies, promise – to this point – has remained just that.

However, at this year’s World Future Energy Summit (WFES) in Abu Dhabi – where Recharge was launched nine years ago – only the most cynical of industry observers would not have been persuaded that meaningful change is finally afoot.

The latest forecasts of energy demand in the region are illuminating. The UAE is expected to need a total of 483GW of power generation capacity by 2035, up from around 280GW today, to accommodate the emerging economic diversification in the emirates and a rapidly growing population base that is spurring demand growth of some 3.3% per year, according to a new report from Siemens and clean-energy group Masdar.

Gas will necessarily retain its primacy as a power source in this scenario, accounting for 60% of the installed generation base by 2035. But the renewables build-out in the Middle East is expected to swell to 100GW, with new solar capacity exploding from 1.35GW to 61GW and wind riding an updraft from 360MW to over 11GW, as clean energy’s overall share of the region’s power mix triples from its current 5.6% of total electricity production.

“The convergence of technologies is promising a paradigm shift in the way in which we produce and consume energy and there is no question that the Middle East will be at the heart of the transformation taking place,” said Masdar chief executive Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi in a briefing with international journalists on the eve of WFES.

His sentiments echoed with global resonance in the days that followed, with the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) unveiling figures showing wind and PV projects could be flowing electricity at $0.03/kWh or less inside the next two years as cost trajectories continue their precipitous, hydrocarbon-undercutting decline. And Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported that an “extraordinary” 53GW PV installation boom in China had pushed last year’s worldwide renewables investment total to $333.5bn, 3% higher than in 2016.

Even offshore wind and concentrating solar power, historically viewed as prohibitively expensive, are now projected to ease into the energy mainstream between 2020-22 on the back of auction bids priced at $0.06-0.10/kWh, igniting “accelerated deployment globally”.

By Irena’s calculations, “all renewable energy technologies compete with fossils on price by 2020”. The tipping point looms.

“Turning to renewables for new power generation is not simply an environmentally conscious decision, it is now – overwhelmingly – a smart economic one,” said Irena director-general Adnan Amin. “The energy transition is now in third gear – and will soon be in fourth.”

At last, in the land of black gold – and indeed the world over – all signs point to the dawning of a new era of green energy.

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